An eerie parallel between yesterday and today:

Translation

A Parallel Process

Translation

The persecution of witches

Under the guise of protecting the society, in the 15th century a modern trend set in – the persecution of witches.

The European population was taken up by mass hysteria, as soon as something unexplainable, for example seldom seen celestial phenomena, natural disasters, killing sprees, or diseases occurred. A number of regional courts occupied themselves with witch trials and in many places it came to burning of witches and extensive persecution. The pope spoke of increasing “devilish powers” and the worldly authorities taking over the church persecution made the wave of witch persecutions even more extensive. The legal basis of the witch trials in all German cities was the constituio criminalis carolina, which was regulated into the smallest detail. The court had to prove the perpetration of crime of the accused, what had to happen by confession or – if there was no confession – by two consistent statements of impeccable witnesses. If it these witnesses were lacking the accused could not be condemned,

The persecution of sects

Under the guise of protecting the society, in the 20th century a modern trend set in – the persecution of sects. The European population is taken in by mass hysteria because there are more and more religious and spiritual groups. In the large churches special sect experts are being brought in to fight against these and fear and terror is being spread through the media: “The dark power is increasing. And with it the danger that it creates. Sects draw millions into their course. Once they’re in their claws the members are brainwashed.” (source: Huffington Post)

In this context several courts deal with custody withdrawal procedures, they are about children

Translation

but had to be forced to make confession, in case of need, through embarrassing interrogation (along with torture), if there was great certainty concerning the guilt. The confession of the accused was counted as the most reliable way to find out the truth. A confession made under torture was only valid if it was repeated by free will, in written form after the torture. This seemingly humane regulation didn’t help the accused at all, but rather was threatened again, with further torture, if he’d renounce the confession he made under torture.

In the Imperial City Nördlingen

A special juristic, political, and personal constellation in Nördlingen added to the general phenomenon:

1. the introduction and application of the Roman law, that required a confession for the official final condemnation – be it through torture.

2. The magistrate was convinced that, according to the law of that time,

of parents that don’t conform to the mainstream, but think and believe differently; among others, Christian home schoolers. In many states it leads to abduction of children and extensive persecutions of people of different faith. The intervention of the authorities make for further hysteria and a wave of persecution against people that think differently. The “pluralistic society” feels threatened by “parallel societies”.

In the former imperial city of Nördlingen

Added to the general phenomenon is the special juristic, political, and personal constellation in Nördlingen.

1. The introduction and application of the recently passed paragraph § BGB “the right of a child for nonviolent education” is used to separate children from their parents. Though officially evidence for endangerment of the child is required.

2. The city council is convinced that, according to the law of today, people of different faith,

Translation

people who thought differently and acted differently, had to be punished.

3. According to their inner conviction, the council members and Judges Doctor Sebastian Röttinger and Doctor Wolfgang Graf, as well as the mayor Johannes Pferinger, were protectors and advocates of the medieval world order. They were in duty from 1589 until 1598 and supported the witch trials. In the overall view the Carolina contains rather mild terms for the criminal offense of witchcraft, which can hardly be made responsible for the extension of the witch trials. But in Nördlingen, as in many other Reich-German sovereignties, witchcraft was not considered a common crime, but a crimen exeptum (exceptional crime). This evaluation allowed them to disregard the milder terms of the Carolina and to promote any form of excessive form of witch persecution; urgent legal procedures and unrestricted and repeated torture were the order of the day. Beyond that the main focus shifted from the accusation of magic curse to the accusation of a pact with the devil. One important element of the history of the Nördlingen trials is also the fact, that in the free Protestant imperial city the whole council was in charge of jurisdiction.

3.The responsible judges, prosecuting attorneys as well as politicians seem to have an inner conviction of being protectors and advocates of the modern ideology, it remains to be hoped that they won’t be carried away by the “sect persecution”.

42 children of the Twelve Tribes near Nördlingen are ripped out of their families in September 2013, because the parents are charged with abuse. The district courts of Nördlingen and Ansbach collectively withdraw the custody of 17 families in an urgent legal procedure based on the accusation of child abuse. The Jugendamt doesn’t know most of the families and is not interested in the individual evidences of the individual children. The Bavarian state parliament all agreed on October 23rd 2014 that the Twelve Tribes must be a dangerous sect. Can this discrimination be a reason to disregard a fair trial and milder measures, to promote the persecution of sects? The lawyers, staff of institutions, and foster parents realize that these families are being treated differently and that an approach as this one had not occurred before.

Translation

Since it was about something so dangerous as witches, the council felt justified to break the existing laws. 43 people were charged with witchcraft in the imperial city of Nördlingen during the years 1589 until 1598. It was impossible to prove oneself innocent during the torture. The torture was repeated up to four times and for crimes of particular severity the torture was applied with extreme length, hardness, and frequency. A woman who was arrested because of witchcraft had to be guilty, whether the charge or investigation it was just or unjust. Or else it would be embarrassing for the responsible ones.

The trial Maria Holl

The couple Michael and Maria Holl ran a restaurant „To the golden crown“ on the Weinmarkt in Nördlingen. Both were respected and devout citizens and their restaurant had an excellent reputation. One day as her husband was on the way in town, two hangman’s assistants came rushing into the restaurant and arrested her,

Beyond that the main focus shifted from the accusation of child abuse to the accusation of “sect membership”.

The Trial Of The Twelve Tribes

The families of the Twelve Tribes run the farm Klosterzimmern, live in a former inn in the center of Wörnitz, and run a restaurant “Prince and Pauper” at the Reimlinger gate in Nördlingen from 2004 until 2010. They are peaceful and devout citizens and their Hoffests are much appreciated in the whole region. One morning while they are still sleeping the farm Klosterzimmern is stormed by 50 workers of the Jugendamt supported by a hundred police officers and take

Translation

for she had been accused for witchcraft. Probably she had been denounced like many others. At first Maria, who was not aware of any guilt, hoped that the situation would quickly clear up through her good relationship with the mayor and as other members of the town council.

The Examination For External Witch Features

The next morning Maria was brought into the interrogation room by mayor Johannes Pferinger and the two judges Dr.Wolfgang and Dr. Sebastian Röttinger. The two executioners and his two assistants undressed the woman, shackled her and examined every centimeter of her body for traitorous witch features. Because he could not find anything, they removed all her hair and a tiny uneven spot was exposed. As it was common the executioner poked it with a needle, and Maria Holl screamed. Since witches were not to feel pain in these spots,

all the children captive, because their parents are accused of abuse. The children are taken into custody based on false witnesses of ex-members whose purpose is to destroy the community. At first the parents, who are not aware of any guilt, hope that the situation will quickly clear up through the obvious good fruit in their children and their good relationships with the authorities for many years.

The Examination For External Signs Of Abuse

On that same day all the children are examined in the district office Donau-Ries. All the captured children and youth have to undress and every centimeter of their bodies are examined for any revealing features. Since the medical officer can not find anything another forensic doctor is consulted, who can neither find any abuse. Even though the expected signs are not found the children are brought to institutions, youth welfare facilities, and foster families. In the press conference the public is informed about a “horror scenario”. One

Translation

the examination was recessed and Maria was brought back into the dungeon.

The Interrogation

Now she was first exposed to an embarrassing interrogation, in which she was supposed to admit that she had engaged with the devil. Maria Holl looked at the Mayor and the other men unbelieving because all of them knew her and were regulars in her restaurant. She was polite initially but eventually she denied the charges indignantly. Obviously now the protestations of innocence were given less credibility than the denunciations. The Mayor accused her of not taking the court serious and let her be brought into the dungeon so that she could reconsider her situation.

of the nursing mothers is told that “She’ll never have her children back”.

The Interrogations

Thereupon the prosecuting attorney induces that all the youth of the Twelve Tribes are interrogated for the purpose of investigation. One of the youth taken captive comes home from school on November 17th 2013, and is interrogated before lunch. In this three hour long interrogation the detective chief commissioner tries to move the fourteen-year-old to make a false statement against her mother. All the other youth refuse to make any statements. The next thing decided is to hear all of the children at the family court in order to finally get the missing evidence for the charges of abuse. The effected families get the impression that the district court of Nördlingen is only trying to move them to confess their sect membership and the abuse they are accused of. Children and parents are desperately trying to convey the truth to the seemingly biased court. Head of the Jugendamt, school-psychologist, teachers and also the doctors were present in the community and could have testified that the children were doing good despite chastisement. Why were they not asked in order to find the out truth? Seemingly now the representatives of authority and protestations of innocence of the accused are believed less than the false statements of the ex-members.

Translation

The Torture

In the dungeon she had to endure by sitting on the floor with her arms and legs stretched far forward. It was only bearable when unconsciousness came over her. On the next day she again was brought into the interrogation room under unimaginable pain. Now it was about getting the supposed witch to make confession. With all the instruments of torture available the executioner went to work. Soon she realized that she was not spared from the torture by making little concessions. On the contrary: the councilmen blackmailed her all the more. Maria Holl revoked everything she had said before and was no longer willing to make any more confessions.

This way weeks

The constitutional requirements for withdrawal of the custody of the child actually looks like this: in order to justify the separation of child from the parents, the courts have to find evidence in the individual case, that the parental care has reached to such an extent, that the child is physically, spiritually, or mentally endangered with its parents. Unfortunately this regulation doesn’t really help the families, because it is not considered in their procedure. They try time and time again to make the children speak against their parents.

The Torture

Children and parents remain separated. They can only see each other every three weeks for two hours – never alone, always with strict surveillance. At night the children cry themselves to sleep and pray in hopes that they can go back to their loving parents. They are ill frequently and some are becoming obese and out of sorrow they eat too many sweets. The supplications of the children to have more contact with the parents are answered by the Jugendamt employees with the threat: “We can also totally stop the contact if you don’t like it.” The foster parents are being taught on behalf of the Jugendamt by so called “sect experts” against the believe of the parents. They should be convinced that the parents actually are evil people. Furthermore the foster parents are ascertained and the children persuaded that the sect

Translation

and months past in which the woman was exposed to incomprehensible pain by day and by night. One time the mayor even presented a letter to her from her husband, in which he expressed how deeply disappointed he was about her unfaithful behavior. Maria however saw through it that the letter had been faked and unwaveringly protested her innocence.

One day Maria was once again tortured through the rope: Her arms were bound to a rope which was attached to a wheel and pulled her up on it. The mayor and the rest that were present decided to take in an extended lunch in the meantime and left Maria hang on the rope for two hours. Some time she eventually had to break.

The Nördlinger people started having doubts about the correctness of the action because of Maria Holl’s inflexibility and willpower, so all the more the responsible ones put forth everything to black mail a confession in order to justify themselves before the public. But neither thumbscrews nor Spanish boots nor thorn ladders would cause Maria Holl to admit the deeds she was being accused of.

Before the end of his term of office the mayor Pferringer let Maria Holl be tortured one more time but again without success. The council was no longer

parents don’t love them because they don’t want to deny their believe in order to get their children back. Through this torture the children are supposed to make confession against their parents. At some point they will break. After a few months some of the children can no longer withstand the psycho-terror and start doubting their parents. But most of the children are still writing heartbreaking letters of request to the judge, their guardian at litem and to the Jugendamt employees, that they would let them go back to their parents. Several youth see their only hope in fleeing from the institutions or foster families. Two girls hope to find refuge with their grandmother in their home country – Switzerland. At first the Swiss police does not find a reason to take the girls from where they are staying when they find them, but because of the insistence of the German Jugendamt they are once again separated with police force not only from their parents but also from each other.

Why do the judges not start doubting the correctness of their action on the basis of the inflexibility and willpower of the children? Or is it about trying to get a confession in order to justify themselves toward the public? Neither interrogations nor indoctrinations nor any kind of psychological

Translation

willing to give order to continue the torture. Nevertheless Maria Holl was still not released.

Oath Of Truce

Only months did they again take care of the crown landlady. Even after 62 tortures Maria Holl did not render a confession and slowly the displeasure in the population grew about the action of the town councils. Finally the family of the accused from Ulm stood up for her and the court came under pressure to act. It was impossible to execute her without a confession, but it could not either be admitted that an innocent person had been tortured for many months. In the meantime more advocates that were impressed by her perseverance had registered. Elected representatives were commissioned to direct a writing to the city of Nördlingen with the request to release Maria Holl. Her release was further delayed because they feared for the consequences and the relationships to the imperial city of Ulm. So as not to effect the reputation of the council, they presented her with a composed legal opinion, an oath of truce to sign. She obligated herself therein that she would not leave her house anymore and would not take revenge on her persecutors. In particular she confirmed the correctness of the actions of the city council.

pressure can make the Twelve Tribes children admit the abuse they are accused of.

Oath Of Truce

After a while two families distance themselves from the Twelve Tribes and agree with the Jugendamt so that they can get their children back. So as not to damage the reputation of the judges and officials an agreement is made in court. The parents leave the rights for their children to the Jugendamt, this way they cannot leave the country anymore and pay the youth welfare measure. By doing so they confirm the correctness of the actions of the councils.

Even after almost two years of psychological torture no endangerment of the child’s well-fair is found on the children of the Twelve Tribes. Shouldn’t the displeasure of the population grow about the action of the court? After all several settled doctors from Nördlingen that treat and know the children for many years as well as good friends stand up for the families. The court is coming under pressure to act because according to the basic law children can by no means be separated from their parents without the evidence of the endangerment of the child’s well-fair. Could it actually be that innocent children are being tortured for many months by being seperated from their families.? Even in the European Parliament the voices are getting loud that families are being tortured by the German Jugendamt. (Source: Archeviva.com)

Translation

The End Of The Persecution

Maria Holl signed and was able to go back to her life as a free citizen after almost two years. After this no other woman in Nördlingen was judged because of witchcraft. This early end of the persecution is due to the unfavorable process against Maria Holl which after multiple tortures did not admit and therefore had to be released. Unfortunately Maria Holl was misused in the third Reich for the advantage of national socialist propaganda. The witch was made into an Aryan hero who successfully fought against the slander of the “evil Jews and Gypsies” by her steadfastness. At that time the masses did not realize that the national socialistic leaders committed the same perversion of justice in the persecution of the Jews as the councilmen in the time of Maria Holl.

Even today the wooden well on the “Winemarkt” in Nördlingen reminds of the steadfastness of Maria Holl and admonishes all the authorities to never again repeat an injustice as this. Her legacy to our time is that we would never forget what can happen if authorities blame citizens on the basis of prejudice and accusations. This way the court loses its function of protection and only serves to convict and not to establish the truth.

The End Of The Persecution?

After almost two years of the delay of the urgent proceeding it is time to acquit the children that are being held separated from their parents against their will, illegally, and without the proof of the endangerment of the child’s well-fair. We hope that this failed process against the courageous parents and children of the Twelve Tribes with their steadfastness will ensure that the persecution against sects and the rapid increase of seizures will come to an end in Germany.

Only if the authorities actually learn from the past and do not disregard human rights can the well memorial of Maria Holl serve it’s true purpose.

Translation

The Twelve Tribes – a people for his possession

“AndnowI stand here on trial because of my hope in the promise made by God to our fathers, to which our twelve Tribes hope to attain, as they earnestly worship night and day. And for this hope I am accused by Jews, O king…” Acts 26, 6-7 (ESV)

Theterm “People” generally means a community or a big group of people with the same culture. A common history, traditions, customs, clothe, folk music and dance and also education of children are a part of the culture of a people.

We are disciples of Jesus Christ, the son of God. We are so thankful that we found forgiveness for our sins through his precious blood that we only want to live for Him. This is how we became God’s “peculiar” people – a people that belongs to Him, His possession, the people of His possession, that has always consisted of Twelve Tribes. When we talk about the Twelve Tribes, than we mean a real alliance of communities were people daily live together in unity. Twelve different Tribes are going to be a light to the nations in Twelve regions of the earth.

It was no secret to the apostle Paul that god wanted to raise up his Twelve Tribe people, an Israel of the new covenant, were the Jews and the gentiles would be united through the Holy Spirit. Then is it so absurd that God wants to do the same in our days?

After all there never was this people for His own possession…

He says: “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.” Isaiah 49, 6 (ESV)

Revised and updated

The parents of the four children who were taken away permanently by the ruling of the OLG Nürnberg are appealing the decision to the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe. There are a number of constitutional violations in the OLG rulings that must be heard by the honorable court. Here are some of them:

The court in its ruling admits that there is no evidence of abuse in the children. On the day of the seizure by the state the doctor found that no signs of physical or any other kind of abuse; the courts could neither find any damage. According to the courts conviction the impending chastisement in the future, are chastisements that do not leave marks.

In its reasoning the court takes the position that all spanking is abuse. The Jugendamt handbook says that all spanking is not abuse: corporal punishments that are connected to afflicting a little force or violence, that don’t hold any risk of injury, and obviously serve as an educative purpose, are clearly to be differentiated from abuse and are regularly not connected to a damage of a child’s welfare.1This supports what Parliament made clear in 2000 that the intent of the law was not to criminalize parents who spank – much less that they would lose their child custody.

The OLG (higher appeals court) had to recognize that the parents meet their children with love and affection and avoid all the education mistakes that the former constitutional judge, Udo di Fabio, brings into consideration: “Corporal violence at certain intensity [is] very obvious to those who want to see, the inhuman child abuse happens in at least as much in “nonviolent” behaviors. Whoever doesn’t speak to his disobedient child for three days might abuse his child in his soul in a far greater way than a considered reaction and moderately give him a “blow” which used to be common. Whoever leaves already little children alone in front of the television or computer, whoever does not confront outstanding misconduct in children or youth based on his own indifference and comfort, whoever demonstrates a lack of bonding, through their own misuse of nicotine and alcohol, or sets a devastating example through disorderly lifestyle, hurts his children enormously…”

The constitutional court will have to answer important questions for all the parents, whether the custody can be taken from parents due to conviction of the court that there’s impending corporal punishment, that doesn’t leave marks, if the parents indisputably raise their children with love, affection and a good example. According to the reasoning of the OLG Nürnberg that does not matter, and all parents who by some educative reason might spank, could lose their child custody.

As the press release of the OLG shows, it treated the parents mainly as members of the Twelve Tribes. The withdrawal of the custody is justified identically for both families. It is a matter of individual families and individual parents, which differ in many ways. They have the warranted right to be treated and judged as individuals, especially before court. The thing they have in common is that they belong to the Twelve Tribes. The OLG Nürnberg bases their justification of the withdrawal of custody on that. It even states clearly that, unless the parents would give up their religious responsibility they could not regain the custody over their children.

When one of the social workers heard about the decision, she commented, “I thought the German government did away with sippenhaft (guilt by association) in 1945, but I see that it was re-instituted in this decision by the OLG.”2

The affected parents see themselves as persecuted for their religious convictions and robbed of their children.

The behavior of the press confirms this suspicion: The press release of the OLG Nürnberg is being spread without even attempting to give the parents a chance to make a statement. The parents are not represented as individuals and bearers of constitutional rights, but vilified as cult-parents through guilt of association.

According to the international criminal law genocide is committed by the one who forcefully takes away children from a religious group, in order to completely or partially destroy the group. Does the collective removal of all the children of the community of the Twelve Tribes, from the infants up to almost adult youth, without concrete evidence of an endangerment of those children and youth, and their religious re-education in state custody not fulfill the fact of genocide?3The Constitutional Court will have to answer these questions.

Guilt by association is a violation of a basic freedom according to the Basic Law.

“Corporal punishments of children are forbidden in Germany according to § 1631 BGB. But not every physical penalty that is connected with minor use of force or violence and does not include any risk of injury and serves for the child obviously as educational purposes are to be clearly differentiated from physical child abuse.” Excerpt from: Manual child endangerment under §1666 of the Civil Code and general social service (ASD); Note 8, Section 5-3 Kindler, Lillig, Bluemel, Meysen, Werner (ed.)) ↩

Sippenhaft is clan guilt. According to Wikipedia it refers to the principle of families sharing the responsibility for a crime committed by one of its members. Practiced by totalitarian regimes such as Communist Russia and North Korea and also by socialist regimes such as National Socialist (Nazi) Germany. ↩

According to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article 2, genocide is to “d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;” and “e) forcibly transferring children of the group to another group,” thereby, with regards to the Twelve Tribes in Germany, accomplishing “c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;” not to mention the second part of “b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group.” ↩

in the “Augsburger Allgemeine” on May 12, 2015 in the article, “Conflict about The Twelve Tribes” you might have seen two posters held up by two girls in the parade.

One poster showed a girl from 1939 with the title “You too belong to the Führer” and the other one was with a girl from today, and it said, “YOU TOO BELONG TO THE STATE”.

I just wanted to let you know: I am this girl from today and I feel exactly like on that picture. The Jugendamt and the family court treat me as if I belong to the state. Since almost two years they try to control my life – without reason.

On September 5,2013 they wrested me from my parents and the community in where I lived, with hundred police, and brought me to the District Office Donauwörth. There were police standing at every exit and in every corner. After a conversation with a social worker we were brought to an examination room. There we were examined medically by state doctors, even though we already let ourselves be examined voluntarily by state doctors in Klosterzimmern. We had to undress completely and of course they didn’t find or anything not even a scratch and I thought, we would go home right away since it was clear that we were not abused.

Imprisoned by the State!

But to my terror they transported me and one of my friends to an institution for difficult girls.

There we were put into “youth protection”…one room with nothing inside besides two beds and a little bathroom and two locked windows. The educators could only air out the room while we were eating and during that time the door was locked behind us. Before we got back to our room they locked the windows again. A real PRISON!

For the next five weeks we were completely isolated. I was not allowed to have any contact with my parents, my siblings, nor anybody else – with no friends or acquaintances, not even with my grandparents, who do not even live in the community. All my steps were controlled and watched precisely – we could not even take a walk to get fresh air.

In that time I did not get to see my parents, that was very hard for me. Finally after weeks I could phone with them for ten minutes a week, but only under supervision. The phone call was listened to and the educator told me what I could say. Afterward she had to write everything down.

My letters to Judge Roser at the court of Nördlingen and to the Judge Prexl at the Higher Regional Court were never answered. Even though I made it very clear at the hearings, that I want to go back to my parents, they only wrote in the rulings that I am endangered, because I live in the community and we believe in the Bible.

I missed everything at home so much – my parents, my siblings, and our beautiful, peaceful life together. How we were together all the time, it didn’t matter what we did, we always had so much fun together. Instead I was here, locked up behind high monastery walls and I could do nothing of all what I used to do before.

After half a year I had enough of it and finally fled from the institution. When I arrived in Klosterzimmern, I was so happy and I thought that now everything could be like before – but unfortunately it was not like that!!

The Jugendamt still tries to control my life.

Constantly they come with police raids to our property and try to catch me again and return me to the institution.

Since my flight from the institution I have to live in fear all the time, that I would be brought back to where I don’t want to be.

Yes, I think I have the right to say that the state controls me, for it is exactly like what I heard about the time 75 years ago. I thought, that people changed in the meantime. It is sad to see, how history repeats itself.

It was clear to me, since the beginning, that the state wants to destroy our community. And that that state tries to do it through the children. It is like genocide.1 If you take away the children of a people, the people perishes.

Our common life and our culture was very appreciated by all thousands of people and all enjoyed it.

Yet it is not a good life for me, according to the JA.

All they could tell me was:

it is not just a problem with your family, but also with the community and because YOU belong to it, we won’t let you go free.

It is genocide according to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article 2, genocide is to “d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;” and “e) forcibly transferring children of the group to another group,” thereby, with regards to the Twelve Tribes in Germany, accomplishing “c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;” not to mention the second part of “b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group.” ↩

The Wolf and the Lamb

A lamb quenched his thirst in a clear brook. It was caught by a hungry wolf. “How dare you, he shouted angrily, “tarnish my drinking water? For this impertinence you need to be punished! ”

“Oh, my lord,” replied the Lamb, “do not do evil to me. please. I drink even twenty steps below you. Therefore, I can not tarnish the water.”

“You do it yet,” said the cruel wolf. “And besides, I know that thou spoke ill of me last year.”

“What should I have done, then?” replied the Lamb, “I was not even been born then.”

“If you did not do it, then your brother did!”

“I have no brother.”

“Then it was just any other of your family. You did it ever always after me, you, your shepherds, and your dogs. But I must have my revenge.” With these words, the wolf grabbed the lamb, dragged it into the woods and ate it up easily.

La Fontaine

It is becoming more and more evident as time goes on that the children of the Twelve Tribes in Germany were taken away because of the beliefs of the parents. It has nothing to do with specific evidence of abuse or endangerment to the individual children. That question was answered on the day of the infamous raid on September 5, 2013, by the state appointed doctors who examined all the children. In those examinations, they found no signs of physical or psychological abuse on any of the children.

Translation (of the words, “Es wurden…unserer Zeitung.”)

“No abnormalities were found in the children, nor psychological ones, said (County Chief) Rößle, on answer to the question of our paper.”

They came to the same conclusion a year before when all the children were examined for signs of abuse by a different state appointed doctor. The same conclusion was reached for seven years prior to the raid by the school psychologist and the head of the Jugendamt, Alfred Kanth. For seven years these officials visited our school frequently and issued glowing reports about their well-being. All of this information is well documented and was made known to the court from the very beginning. Somehow it never occurred to these officials that all the time these glowing reports were being issued and the doctors report from 2012 was clearly stated, these same children were being spanked lovingly by their parents.

The standard for harm in a democratic society is evidence of harm on specific children. But this is clearly not the standard followed by the Family Courts and the Jugendamt in this part of Germany because no harm was ever found on our children. Not on the day of the Raid and not on any other day. No harm at all until the day of the Raid. Then harm was done to them.

The issue with the Bavarian officials is the fact that the parents spank their children according to the loving way described in the Bible, both Old and New Testaments. State officials don’t like the beliefs of the parents. A prosecutor from Donauworth recently stated in a filing in criminal court against one of the parents, “This parent actually raised her son in her beliefs.” So, now it becomes clear that the state prosecutor wants to criminalize this parent’s beliefs.

The state of Bavaria stole these children by traumatically tearing them away from their parents, ignored the evidence clearly put before them that day, made a public statement that the real harm is the existence of a parallel society that they term a “sub-culture.”

Translation (“In diesem Fall…vorenthalten werden.”)

“In this case, the damage goes far beyond the mistreatment: One must also remember that the children are completely cut off from the normal life of our society and they are deprived of many opportunities.”

Post Word War II Germany promotes itself as being a pluralistic, constitutional republic. Pluralism promotes a free market of ideas and beliefs. These ideas and beliefs are protected under a legitimate constitution. If these ideas and beliefs produce positive results this is how that country advances.

Translation

[Under caption] “The school of the community of faith, the Twelve Tribes in Bavaria, probably stands on the brink: The Original Christians have problems finding qualified teachers. Furthermore drop-outs…

[Text] “…Every four to six weeks employees of the Youth Office visit at the farm. We see there happy, well-behaved children who cling to their parents,” says Kanth. “We have no recourse to take them from their families.”1

But Germany has a law against spanking. But the evidence in the children of the Twelve Tribes does not uphold the theory behind their law. That’s why the state now goes behind the glaring evidence of no harm to the children and wants to force psychological examinations on these traumatized children who have been subjected to indoctrination against their parents’ beliefs and lifestyle for 20 long months, when these children loved the life the had with their parents before the raid. The purpose of these psychological evaluations is to now use the children as pieces of evidence against their parents and to exploit their vulnerability to produce “evidence” to justify the state’s ill-fated raid on this religious community.

This is a systematic plan to destroy the Twelve Tribes. It is a very effective form of genocide2 to take away the children of a whole community; a real, viable, alternative culture that produced happy, secure, educated exemplary children.

We hope that the German people would wake up to what is actually happening here in their midst and speak up against this atrocity. Germany needs tremendous reforms to their judicial system and legislative checks and balances on the “all powerful” Jugendamt. There is deep corruption in the way this system operates. It is so clear to anyone who knows the true freedom allowed in a real constitutional republic. Our Twelve Tribes live with respect in 10 other countries around the world. It is only Germany that allows it’s agents to take children away from parents when there is no proof of endangerment.

It is only Germany that prosecutes people according to their beliefs and not evidence of harm. There is no protection for anyone in Germany who wants to adapt a viable alternative way of living that is outside the mainstream. Everyone knows that in Germany, if you step out of line, the government will come and take you away or take your children away. Germany’s history, which they want so desperately to escape, is just a reminder of what must be radically changed in the heart of the German people if they are to truly prosper from the heart.

Genocide is here used because one of its definitions, according to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article 2, genocide is to “d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;” and “e) forcibly transferring children of the group to another group,” thereby, with regards to the Twelve Tribes in Germany, accomplishing “c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;” not to mention the second part of “b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;”. ↩

In high school 40 years ago, we read 1984, by George Orwell. Is that book still required reading for students? In my day, we were just three decades past World War II, a little over a decade past the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Cold War dominated the news.

At that time it did not seem so far-fetched, the concept of a diabolical government taking over and tyrannizing the earth, monitoring the lives of its citizens and manipulating their thoughts with seemingly irresistible omnipotence. The term “one-world government” brought real shudders among people who had personally suffered loss because of tyrants. No, we would never allow that – we would wisely be on our guard. We would remember the lessons of history.

So today I rode down an historical side street in Plymouth, Massachusetts, the official landing site of the Pilgrim Separatists. I considered how they had risked absolutely everything to come here, specifically to get away from oppressive rulers who claimed authority over even their opinions and their faith, as well as their bodies. More than half of them died the first winter in the New World. When spring came, bringing the opportunity to return to Europe, they readily and firmly said, “No.” Freedom of conscience was more important. It was better to die free than go back.

So here I was in the car in Plymouth, in October of 2014, and in the window of a retail sales place I saw a banner. It showed a stick figure with a big white grin and little round black sunglasses, having just finished swinging a golf club, and the caption of the picture was, “Life is good.” I notice a little trademark on the caption.

Oh. Life being good now has a trademark. Someone realizes this simple remark could gain income. And there he is, the grinning stick figure dressed in baggy shorts with a beret – at ease with his shades on, vacationing or such, no worries. Life is good for you, stick figure. For whom else is life good? Is it good for everyone? Since life is good for you, stick figure, will you share your good life with others? What makes up a “good” life, anyway?

For me, this banner raises question after question. The stick figure is appealing in a simple way, like Smiley Face who made his debut around the time I was reading 1984 and won the hearts of millions ever after (even when he started making other faces). Smiley has gone into the autonomic nervous system of successive generations, a bosom friend to all.

And now, many people drive by and look at the banner with the stick figure’s big grin, and they read the catchy phrase. Little children ride by and can read it – even very young ones.

“See, Mom! Life is good!” They can notice it everywhere printed on all kinds of items. They will want it printed on their T-shirt souvenir, and hung on their bed-room wall. It is such a nice, non-complaining kind of thing to say: Life is good. We all want to be at ease and enjoy the good life, don’t we? Surely that is what the Pilgrim Separatists, and the boys who died on the beaches of Normandy, intended for us. Isn’t it?

Omaha Beach, Red Section, D-Day, June 6, 1944.

Yes we will honor our founding fathers. We will never allow ourselves to be brainwashed into mindlessness. We are the deep thinkers for whom 1984 was required reading. Along with Catch 22and Johnny Got His Gun which, interestingly, gave us pacifist leanings. We came to simultaneously hate Big Brother and the machine of war, but not want to pay anything for freedom of conscience. We were programmed by hours of Saturday morning programming, and school programming, and after-school programming, and religious programming.

Somehow we came to view ourselves as independent American citizens founded on Plymouth Rock – descendants of revolutionaries and stalwart pioneers, and of the Yanks who saved the world in the mid-1940s – who would not be taken in (no, not ever) by degradingly simple-minded propaganda. Life must stay good, and become as good for all as it is for us.

"Unlike a utopian novel, in which the writer aims to portray the
perfect human society, a novel of negative utopia does the exact
opposite: it shows the worst human society imaginable, in an effort to
convince readers to avoid any path that might lead toward such
societal degradation. In 1949, at the dawn of the nuclear age and
before the television had become a fixture in the family home,
Orwell’s vision of a post-atomic dictatorship in which every individual
would be monitored ceaselessly by means of the telescreen seemed
terrifyingly possible. That Orwell postulated such a society a mere
thirty-five years into the future compounded this fear.

"Of course, the world that Orwell envisioned in 1984 did not
materialize. Rather than being overwhelmed by totalitarianism,
democracy ultimately won out in the Cold War, as seen in the fall of
the Berlin Wall and the disintegration of the Soviet Union in the
early 1990s. Yet 1984 remains an important novel, in part for the
alarm it sounds against the abusive nature of authoritarian governments,
but even more so for its penetrating analysis of the psychology of
power and the ways that manipulations of language and history can
be used as mechanisms of control."

“What is truth?” a ruler once asked a man facing the death penalty. Pilate sensed he was beyond his understanding because of this disturbing fact: the man before him was obviously not motivated by the same fears and desires as other men. But this troubling man was not beyond Pilate’s ability to judge as without fault. Certainly this man was not worthy of the punishment his accusers sought.

We find ourselves in much the same situation, although today the pertinent question is, “What is justice?” Perhaps Germany can look to the east to understand the issues involved. Here are words from a November 6, 2014, conference at the “Sauna” room in the former concentration camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

To an audience composed of Polish prosecutors, judges and other representatives of justice, the following distinguished representatives of Polish justice spoke of what happens when law is regarded as “value free”:

The quality of judgment

Marek Zirk-Sadowski, Vice-president of the Supreme Administrative Court, stressed that the law consist in judging of man by man. “The quality of a judgment depends upon the quality of a person. Justice is a property with a moral aspect. This aspect cannot be only procedural or formal. This needs to be taken into account when issuing a ruling”, he claimed.

“Closing ourselves in legalism and failing to see a need to construct our sentences and rulings also on the principle of proportionality1 as well as failing to recognise the foundation of human rights, all lead to aberrations in even very good legal systems. It is very easy to be drawn into the mechanisms of inhuman law due to misinterpretation and failing to recognise certain values which need to be introduced to the legal system to avoid paying the price that the Germans paid having forgotten about this dimension of law”, he said.

Can law be value free?

Irena Lipowicz: “The legal blight began with the belief that the law can be free from values. We do know that the law which is free from values does not exist.”

Just what are “values”? According to the Cambridge Dictionaries Online, values are “the principles that help you to decide what is right and wrong, and how to act in various situations.” In other words, these Polish legal scholars maintain that law cannot be separated from morality.

Prof. Dr. Günter Hirsch

Where does morality stand in regards to the written, positive laws of a land like Germany? Does it stand over it or bow down before it? Officially, if one reasonably considers the Basic Law, as a normal human being and not as a scheming lawyer, morality is the very basis of law. Again, officially, there is, in the famous speech of the (then) President of the German Federal Supreme Court of Justice, Prof. Dr. Günter Hirsch, the unequivocal statement that “there is a higher law than the written law.”

Is morality the basis of law?

We ourselves, the members of the Twelve Tribes communities of Germany, would not know this to be true. Not from our experience at the hands of the authorities, neither we nor our children would know this to be true. We would not know that morality—what is written on the heart of man regarding good and evil—is the basis of law in Germany. We would not know there is a higher law than the written law. We would not know that the legal philosopher Gustav Radbruch, to whom President Hirsch proudly referred, ever even existed.

Gustav Radbruch (1878-1949)

He, Radbruch, maintained that an appeal to obey God rather than man, was a valid legal proposition. That is to say, a plea worthy of honor by judges who can discern right from wrong. We sincerely hope there are such still in this country. In his fifth minute of legal philosophy, he wrote in 1945:

“In the language of faith, the same thoughts are recorded in two verses from the Bible. It is written that you are to be obedient to the authorities who have power over you (Hebrews 13:7), but it is also written that you are to obey God rather than men (Acts 5:29)—and this is not simply a pious wish, but a valid legal proposition. A solution to the tension between these two directives cannot be found by appealing to a third—say, to the dictum: ‘Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s’. (Mark 12:17) For this directive, too, leaves the dividing line in doubt. Or, rather, it leaves the solution to the voice of God, which speaks to the conscience of the individual only in the particular case.”

Did the God who made us–yes, the very one ostensibly worshipped in thousands of churches around Germany–make us to obey or disobey Him? Is it possible to outlaw what both conscience and the Word of God teaches parents about how to raise their children? Could such a law actually have the force of law? Or is it one of the laws of Germany today “so unjust and so socially harmful that validity, indeed legal character itself, must be denied them,” as Gustav Radbruch said?

Such a law comes in fundamental conflict with the law higher than the written law according to Radbruch: “There are principles of law, therefore, that are weightier than any legal enactment, so that a law in conflict with them is devoid of validity. These principles are known as natural law or the law of reason.”

In the conflict one must stand and one must fall. One must be acknowledged as weightier or one must be accorded validity. If the higher and weightier law falls then it is another step to the abolition of morality. What happens when wrong and right get confused? Do we have any examples from history to enlighten us?

The law can turn wrong into right

A final, sobering reminder of what was done very legally several generations ago. Legally, morally—is there a difference? Only those who can judge by the fruit will ever be able to tell. If you cannot tell by the good fruit of our children that our educational method is good, then you too, like so many Germans yesterday, today, and it seems tomorrow, will not be able to tell the difference between what is legal and what is moral.

Attorney General Andrzej Seremet made a reference to the place (Auschwitz-Birkenau) where the debate was taking place: “This death machine, in the heart of which we are now, was to a considerable extent initiated by lawyers. If it had not been for the lawyers, there would not be those infamous Nuremberg laws nor the administrative organisation of Germany. We, as lawyers in general, should be forced to deeper reflection also on that aspect”, he said.

That is to say that everything that happened in what the world now calls the Holocaust was perfectly legal under the positive laws of Germany.2

That it is now regarded as perfectly immoral misses the point altogether. To the mind that refuses to judge a tree by its fruit there is no difference, nor ever shall be, between what is legal and what is moral.

A society made up of individuals like this has no problem having laws without values. What such a society is capable of doing is beyond one’s lowest imaginations.

This is something we have pleaded for and reminded the courts of many times, so far to no avail. ↩

As Professor Thomas Schirrmacher recently said: “The fact that the laws of a nation make something lawful doesn’t make it right,” he said. “Everything Hitler did in Germany was allowed by the law. He never moved until the law allowed him. Applying the national law of Germany at the time you couldn’t have convicted Hitler of a crime. But what he did obviously and dramatically was a crime against humanity.”

That is to say, it was immoral, as anyone with a functioning conscience could tell then, let alone now. ↩